


Lullaby

by Aliana



Series: Back to Middle-earth Month 2012 [13]
Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drabble Sequence, F/M, Gap Filler, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-23
Updated: 2012-03-23
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:27:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aliana/pseuds/Aliana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world that's changed forever, survival can mean many different things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Lie Down in the Darkness, Rise Up from the Ash](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/7409) by Dwimordene. 



> March 15
> 
> This is a gapfiller for Dwimordene's ridiculously amazing epic LotR AU, [_Lie Down in the Darkness, Rise Up from the Ash_](http://henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter.cfm?stid=8). And by “amazing,” I mean, it will rip out your heart and STOMP ON IT WITH FOOTBALL CLEATS. But I also just mean “amazing.” Everyone go read it (after this month, maybe).  I'm also delighted to be able to reference her 2012 B2MeM story, [Remembrance](http://b2mem.livejournal.com/96526.html).
> 
> **B2MeM Challenge:** I21: Go on a journey and roam the streets can’t see the way out and so use the stars - Sigúr Ros -Glosoli (Song Lyrics  
>  B15: Immortality (Deep Thoughts); A gapfiller to another author’s fanwork (Let's Get Meta!); Broad and Alien is the World - Ciro Alegria (Magic and Real); Betrothal (Relationship)  
>  **Format:** Drabble pair  
>  **Genre:** General; AU  
>  **Rating:** General  
>  **Warnings:** Semi-oblique spoilers. (I know, I just told you to go read the story, and now I’m spoiling it. Such is the nature of meta-fanfic.)  
>  **Characters:** Arwen, Aragorn, Halbarad, OC  
>  **Pairings:** Arwen/Aragorn

_Lay your sleeping head, my love,  
Human on my faithless arm;  
Time and fevers burn away  
Individual beauty from  
Thoughtful children, and the grave  
Proves the child ephemeral:  
But in my arms till break of day  
Let the living creature lie,  
Mortal, guilty, but to me  
The entirely beautiful._

“[Lullaby](http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15542),” W.H. Auden, 1937

**Cerin Amroth, 3019**

Elanor-blossoms show pale in the moonlight. She made her choice long ago, she’d told him; yet she feels part of herself rounding to completion, the world both heavier and lighter.

The shortening of moments makes them more precious. Though mortal life’s bounded, it pulses all the brighter in the urgency with which it seeks beyond itself: even now she feels a quickening.

The Music’s fallen silent. The night’s opaque, yet the stars aren’t wholly stifled. She’ll not lay herself down, but walk by whatever light is given her.

Arwen leaves the mound, never again to come there as living woman.

**Grey Havens, 3025**

Aragorn’s son crouches near the shore, arraying stones on sand.

Halbarad watches this small figure silhouetted against stark horizons, in a world that flames have rendered broad and narrow, familiar and strange.

_What about my father?_  he asked. Only curious; not yet old enough to mourn, really.

Halbarad's caught between warring phrases: noble bland platitudes, gritty world-worn remembrances, all true and all incomplete. Silently he recalls a long-ago promise. Finally he goes and kneels by Arrandir:

“He’d wander at night, only the stars for company.” He takes the boy by the shoulders. “But he’d have rejoiced to walk beside you.”

 

 

_Beauty, midnight, vision dies:  
Let the winds of dawn that blow  
Softly round your dreaming head  
Such a day of welcome show  
Eye and knocking heart may bless,  
Find our mortal world enough;  
Noons of dryness find you fed  
By the involuntary powers,  
Nights of insult let you pass  
Watched by every human love._

**Author's Note:**

>  _'Here is the heart of Elvendom on earth,' [Aragorn] said, 'and here my heart dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread, you and I.  Come with me!'  And taking Frodo's hand in his, he left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as living man._  
>  \--FotR, "Lothlórien."
> 
> _There at last when the mallorn-leaves were falling, but spring had not yet come, she laid herself to rest upon Cerin Amroth; and there is her green grave, until the world is changed, and all the days of her life are utterly forgotten by men that come after..._  
>  \--Appendix A, "Here Follows a Part of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen."
> 
> Aliana's note: If the above don't make it pretty clear, this is also somewhat a revisionist attempt to "rescue" Arwen from her canonical death (in addition to the great extent to which Dwim already has), which in my opinion is maybe the lamest thing ever.  Would Aragorn _actually_ love a woman who'd voluntarily curl up and die due to a long-anticipated widowhood that she's known is coming, for, well, the entire duration of their relationship?  Instead of, I don't know, using her remaining time to help take care of her kingdom and advise her children with her _3000 years of accumulated knowledge_ , and silly stuff like that?  Is this who he'd want to be Queen of the Reunited Kingdoms?  I think not, children.  /soapbox rant


End file.
